I like to plan as well, and it usually works out for me. Except once: I was ordering all my science materials using charter school money at the start of the school year. I just thumbed through all the BFSU lessons, looking at the materials lists and typing up my order. When it started arriving I dutifully stored it away in the closet, and I would remove them, lesson by lesson. Until months later I finally got to the lesson that required the...freshwater Elodea plant. Sadly, it languished and died while waiting patiently in the closet. I guess it is possible to plan too far ahead.

I took this to be a funny take on the UM/Notre Dame rivalry. While I'm neither or Wolverine nor a Fighting Irish, I have friends who are, wouldn't put it past them to one up each other at any opportunity, lol.

I had my dd's take the Edhesive course in 8th grade because I heard it's one of the easier APs. They both got 5's. They had pretty solid python skills going in to the class, so really all they were learning was the Java-specific stuff, not programming per se.

It isn't the best for everyone. Just today I was tutoring a gal in PreAlgebra. Here's a quote from today on page 125: "Our explanation in Problem 3.28 not only tells us how to find the prime factorization of the least common multiple of 24 and 90. It also tells us that this prime factorization must be included in any common multiple of 24 and 90. That is, any positive common multiple's prime factorization must have 2 raised to at least the 3rd power, 3 raised to at least the 2nd power and 5 raised to at least the 1st power. Also, any multiple of lcm[24,90] must also be a common multiple of 24 and 90." That's pretty dense stuff, even if you are familiar with the problem. While reading this, I had a piece of scratch paper out and was circling exponents in the prime factorizations of 24 and 90 so it was clear what the paragraph was trying to communicate. I suspect it's a rare kid who can slog through something like this without some guidance.

LOL, all the students are up late apparently, but none of them are up early? Congratulations!

I love Sebastian's advice. We did everything on her list except the notebook, and now I wish we had! We got through the AoPS sequence by schooling year round. This gives us extra time to go through all the problems without rushing or skipping. It's a rare student (IMO) who can finish any regular AoPS book in a standard school year. You know what also helps is taking old AMCs and MathCounts exams. They will throw a random geometry problem at you several times on a test. You will know your student as retained the information if she can solve those problems out of the context of a math textbook.

Wow, so those parents might still not know they've lost both their children? Unimaginable.

Buy a good supply of purple markers for Grogg...

The thing about (3) is that posting your questions early and often is a sign of intelligence, not weakness. Dd had a little competition going with another gal in her class. This other student did her homework so quickly and so thoroughly dd was amazed she would post these detailed questions about minor inconsistencies that resulted in incomplete understanding. Dd took up the challenge and did the same. It was like she wanted to get her money's worth of data out of the class. "I don't understand <insert minor point here>. What am I not getting." Students who are posting these questions may be appear to be exposing themselves as laggards who don't get it, but actually they are the best students who know what they don't know and take steps to rectify. We do know students who hated AP chem at PAH, and I'm guessing it's for the 3 reasons stated above. (We don't know them well, but had a funny/awkward moment when the mom asked my dd: "Oh, you took that AP chem class? Wasn't it awful?" Uh, no.) Dd took AP bio at SOHS last year and loved it, but heard through the grapevine that their AP chem is meh, and students there felt unprepared for the exam.

I've homeschooled since K. When middle school hit, older dd really wanted to go to school, but I played the mommy card and made her homeschool middle school, just because of the sort of situation OP described (but it was hypothetical because neither dd attended middle school). Sometimes it isn't the school that's a bad apple, but I've heard parents and teachers talk about some years with nice kids and other years where you have some bad apples making life miserable for everyone. At the same school. I gave each dd the opportunity to attend high school, and one decided to homeschool high school, and one is enrolled in high school. But the dd in regular school knows I've got her back if things go south. I think if someone asked me to give up my lunch seat I'd have a hard time holding back tears. I'm near 50 yo. Pull her out now. Take her to the library and have her read anything she wants and let her deschool. Take her to some outing like a museum or similar. Watch movies, and maybe even educational ones! Start researching math curricula and choose one for her and begin. Do the same with another subject and repeat: science, history, english, etc. Middle doesn't really count except for developing solid math and writing skills, so don't sweat it. If you are stressed about getting behind, do what I do and school year round (when not in camps or on vacation). You get 2-3 extra months of schooling for free! You can do this.

I was going to ask the same as Black Eyed Suzan: Is he working through it independently? My kids were older when they started AoPS PreA, but I read the books out loud (and I still did through AoPS calculus!) and write out the problems on paper as we go along. I thought chapter 1 was the toughest because we are reteaching the 4 operations, but with greater rigor and generality, which can be a tough slog. But number theory is really fun. But my dds couldn't do it on their own and they were much older than your son at this level.

Your son could gain a lot by doing old MOEMS exams, maybe once or twice a week. Each worksheet is only 5 problems, there's a lot of variety, and he'll get some good problem solving experience. It isn't a curriulum, but he'll still gain a lot by using it.

Dd was just telling me how much she missed WebAssign, lol. Students who don't do well in Mr. M's AP chem class (as far as I can tell): (1) do not make AP chem a priority and stay caught up with the material (2) do not make sure they understand everything 100% (3) are reluctant to post their questions to the discussion board and admit to the entire class they don't understanding something. If you post questions regularly, you will be rewarded with timely responses from Mr. M. It is remarkable how you can build a relationship with him from text messages only. For a secular class where you meet with students at regular intervals, you can try Stanford Online High School, but it's more expensive and more work and doesn't prepare you as well, according to dd.

I may be having my dd take AP exams at 2 different schools this year. She is wondering if there will be a problem because she thinks she will be assigned a different student number and different student packet for each school. Will it be a problem matching her to all of her scores? Thank you for your help.

What if you took away his pencil (so no doodling) and scribed for him as he described how to solve a problem. Sit next to him and solve the problem with him step by step, hopefully with him doing most of the thinking, and you redirecting him if get distracted. While normally I would say this would be appropriate for a younger student, I'm not particularly ideological about anything except making sure learning gets done. I wonder if that might help?

This is the single worst thing about homeschooling. The worst. That reminds me, I need to do the same thing for dd's 4 tests this year.

Liberal arts college (from what I've read) are looking for students to be good members of the community. Because there will be lots of discussion and debate in and out of the classroom, they are looking for students who can engage with students of very different backgrounds and perspectives and opinions. While they value students who may be passionate about their point of view, they do not want students who may end up offending and alienating other students. So it's important that your student show that they can see both sides of the issue. If he's making a strong statement about a political figure, he may want to show that he has considered the objections others might have to his analysis. The more provocative, the more important it is for his analysis to be nuanced. You don't have much time to leave an impression on your application reader, so you want to ensure that they think your student is thoughtful and has deeply considered his ideas, and appreciates the nuances and the other side of the argument. You don't want them to think your student is an ideologue.

I was mostly impressed that she approached the president of Penn. I admire people who can do something like that, and good for her.

EEE! Love the "give me a belly rub" pic!

My dd is taking AP lang and comp and has had several writing assignments since September. I don't enjoy writing so I'd probably give your college prof and high rating too, lol.

I remember reading that a college application is not a therapy session or a confessional. Students are expected to show their best self to the admissions committee. I suppose that applies to you too!

You might want to be more specific when you say STEM. Engineering or biology? You can major in biology, chemistry, or mathematics at an LAC. If you want to major in EE, then you may need a larger university with a school of engineering, though not always.

When comparing similar triangles, I find it helpful to redraw the triangles separately with corresponding sides oriented the same way and congruent angles clearly marked and vertices labeled. Then you can work your way through the ratios. I thought the toughest chapter was chapter 7, covering the different "centers": orthocenter, incenter, circumcenter, and centroid. Before you begin each section, review what you've already learned and be able to do a quick back of the envelope derivation of all the centers you've learned so far. You should be able to reason: since points on the angle bisectors are equally distant from each side, the intersection of the 3 angle bisectors should be the incenter since this point is equally distant from all 3 sides.

Agree with this. I didn't have a close relationship with my grandparents due to their being overseas and I didn't know our family's native language. I hardly noticed. In fact, it never occurred to me to feel a loss, I suppose, because I was never a witness to my friends' relationships with their grandparents. So there was nothing to be envious of. (But maybe it's different for your dd's because your ds receives preferential treament?) I remember encountering a mom in a similar situation to you: her father was having nothing to do with her children and she was angry and sad. It took some time for me to figure out what bothered this mom so much? It's his loss, I figured. Now I better understand, but if your dd's aren't feeling upset about it, focus on being the best parent you can be. Your kids are lucky to have you in their lives, and that's what they will know and remember.

Okay, I just read an article about them, and they aren't common outside of TX. Are these store bought? It looks like boys wear them, too. Does your BF/GF make them, or do you make them for yourself?